Trained One ✓

Chapter 42

"Look alive, buttercup," Cameron said as he came up to the kitchen table the next morning. "You eating this? It's cold."

I shook my head and Cameron took my plate, clearing the table. I was eating breakfast with Ben, Travis, and Cameron. They'd long finished their food but I was kept finding myself distracted and staring at my plate or pushing my eggs around with my toast. I blamed it on the exhilaration from having spray painted the town the day before because that's practically all I could thing about in bed last night. Finn and Annabeth had recently shown up but they were out of the house when we were all eating so Finn had just grabbed some toast.

Perhaps it was the tiredness that caused my delayed reaction, or the fact that I was so used to Travis calling me names but it wasn't until Cameron came back to the table that I realized what he'd said, tossing it over and over again in my head trying to figure out where I'd heard that before.

"Buttercup?" I paused and tapped my fingers to the table as I thought, staring down at my fingers. "Where have I heard that? That sounds like you got it from..."

"It's from a movie about a blonde princess," Annabeth said with no hesitation.

"Yes!" I snapped my fingers and pointed at Annabeth, excitement at the realization clear on my face but she just stared blankly at me before looking away. "The Princess Bride."

How did she know I was thinking about that reference and not something else? She didn't even seem to guess it, she knew she was going to be right. Has she seen that movie? Has Cameron? The thought of them watching those types of movies was hard to picture but I still looked between the two, imagining them with a bag of popcorn and The Princess Bride playing, or Pride and Prejudice, or....

"He didn't get that from a princess movie," Travis supplied. "He probably pulled it out of his ass, same place he gets all the other shit he says."

Cameron went to whack Travis for that comment but Travis ducked and punched Cameron's side to get him out of his range. I don't think it hurt him, but he backed out of Travis' space anyway.

"Hang on," I raised my hand even though no one was talking as my mind went to another movie. "Have you seen Titanic?"

"The boat movie?" Finn asked.

"It's not just a boat movie," I said. It was a love story.

"Does it not have a boat in it?" Finn raised an eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes because yes he was right but it was a lot more than just a boat movie and wasn't the point that I was trying to make here.

Annabeth took that moment to help me out. "He's seen it," she supplied.

Cameron glowered.

"Why?" Travis asked.

"Jack, the guy in it, says something like 'if you jump, I jump'."

"That's not what I say," Cameron said defensively.

"Right, I realize that," I said, holding up my hands to try to get him to chill out because it's not like I had a weapon pulled on him. "It's 'if I say jump, you jump. If I say duck, you duck'. Don't they have something like that in...Wait, I'm remembering the line wrong." I waved my hand away, dismissing it.

Hannah walked into the room and got a glass a water, hesitating for a moment as if to see if the conversation was safe or if she needed to disappear out of the room again. When I first met her, I didn't really think she was serious when she said she didn't want any info on the gang activities.

"Now I'm interested, what was the line?" Ben asked, glancing at Cameron who looked like he was trying to simmer his rage.

Okay, it was two movies. He needed to calm down.